When pro­perty owners say no, we do the opposite: Johanne and Lena Nalbach

Johanne and her husband Gernot Nalbach ori­gi­nally hail from Austria, but founded their archi­tecture firm in Berlin 50 years ago. Their hotel designs are just one of the things they’re known for. Over 30 years ago, they also inad­ver­t­ently became hote­liers. Their See­hotel am Neu­klos­tersee is still a tim­eless lakeside hotel today.

Moritz Nalbach, a cul­tural studies gra­duate, and Lena Nalbach, also an architect, are the next gene­ration of the family already playing key roles. Which par­ti­cu­larly applies to Kava­liershaus Schloss Blücher on Lake Fincken, the family’s second hotel project.

We met Johanne and Lena Nalbach in their office in Berlin and lis­tened to the eventful history and expe­rience as archi­tects and hote­liers.

Jan Hamer: What prompts archi­tects to become hote­liers – were you bored?

Johanne Nalbach: The See­hotel pretty much fell into our laps. Over three decades ago, Ber­liner Mor­genpost, a German news­paper, ran an ad for two farm­houses on the lake. In Austria, my art project for my school-leaving exam was all about farm types. At the weekends, we used to go to the Mühl­viertel region, which fea­tured some very attractive examples.

I enjoyed heading out there. There was a beau­tiful chestnut tree in front of the Kunst­scheune (the cul­tural events venue), which reminded me very much of Aus­trian inns. The com­bi­nation with the lake and farm­houses made a huge impression on me.

Ori­gi­nally, we wanted to use the pro­perty our­selves. However, Horst and Rosi, who had run it as a holiday home for the Mor­genröte agri­cul­tural coope­rative for 14 years, would have then lot their jobs. We asked the coope­rative what would happen to the old couple. They said they weren’t bothered about them as long as we purchased the pro­perty.  But we weren’t pre­pared to go that far. We’ve designed enough hotels, so thought we’d plan our own little one.

We took our time and it grew at a lei­surely pace. And that was what made this project so appe­aling. Otherwise, when I design hotels under normal cir­cum­s­tances, they have to open the next day. There’s no honeymoon period so to speak – ever­y­thing has to work per­fectly. Our lakeside hotel grew slowly on the other hand. Today, we have 25 units. With the Bade­scheune (a spa facility) and the holiday homes, we’ve added quite a lot… 

Ulrich Stefan Knoll: Your Kava­liershaus is the second hotel you own. How did that come about?

Johanne Nalbach: Books and maga­zines that I don’t manage to read during the day are always spread out on my bed. Then, at some point, I dis­co­vered the Kava­liershaus auction cata­logue. It was such a beau­tiful, crisply designed building. I didn’t want another beau­tiful piece of archi­tecture to go to rack and ruin, so I bought it during a 10-minute phone auction.

During the process, my husband came in an asked what I was doing. I told him that we were buying a Kava­liershaus (cavalier’s house) too. Purchasing it was the cheap part, but the amount we ploughed into it was another story. Lena and I then designed the archi­tecture. We tried to pre­serve as much as pos­sible. However, this proved to be an own goal because the suites are vast and we wanted to change as little as pos­sible. In prac­tical terms, this means they are expensive to heat and hard to manage. But when pro­perty owners say no, I do the opposite.

Lena Nalbach: While managing the Kava­liershaus project, I rea­lised that locals were way dif­ferent to what I was accus­tomed to on the Meck­lenburg coast. People say hello and talk to you. At some point, someone said to me: “Nobody ever comes here. Before, during and after the war, or before and after German reuni­fi­cation, time seemed to stand still here. We’re delighted that you’re refur­bishing the building. Many gene­ra­tions of children went to school here.”

“Our guiding prin­ciple was to attach enormous importance to the houses’ history and sur­roun­dings.”

- Johanne & Lena Nalbach

Johanne Nalbach: Perhaps it’s important to touch on the archi­tec­tural side. You could say that our guiding prin­ciple was to attach enormous importance to the houses’ history and sur­roun­dings. In the case of the Kava­liershaus, we wanted to accen­tuate its aris­to­cratic and GDR-era past.  

The same applied to the See­hotel. Which is why, unlike many other hotels, it goes without saying that we didn’t place design in the fore­ground there either. Defined by the land­scape, the lake and old trees, the building’s real story is rooted in nature. The­r­efore, its design and mate­riality had less of a priority. These aspects are evident in the mate­rials we chose for the rooms where we only used cherry, oak, beech and walnut.

Then we have the farm­house, the new Bade­scheune and Kunst­scheune. In terms of the interior design, each house needs a dif­ferent response. An approach that makes a refe­rence to what the building once was and will be in the future.

The same applied to the Kava­liershaus. In that case, we had to use other archi­tec­tural devices because the rooms are abso­lutely vast. We chose Meck­lenburg artists as the under­lying theme for the suites. For ins­tance, I took a more intellectual route by playing with Caspar David Friedrich, Otto Lili­enthal, Uwe Johnson and Günther Uecker in the hotel rooms.

Ulrich Stefan Knoll: Talking about mile­stones. I noticed that this year is your firm’s 50th anni­versary. Will you be having a party?

Johanne Nalbach: That’s right, we founded the firm in 1975. Back then, we ope­rated from home on Wei­marer Strasse. We had small but won­derful com­mis­sions, lots of pro­jects based on erst­while art and archi­tecture pro­grammes. But by we, I mean mostly Gernot. I was still busy with the children. In my case, my pro­jects were small when the kids were young and big when they were older. Which was typical of women’s lives back then.

Jan Hamer: It’s fasci­nating that these pro­jects turned you into hote­liers in the first place. And you have been for more than three decades. How do you juggle managing those busi­nesses and the archi­tecture firm?

Johanne Nalbach: In the past, running the lakeside hotel and Kava­liershaus simul­ta­neously with the archi­tecture firm wasn’t that time con­suming. But it’s the opposite these days. Times have changed and it’s very hard to find staff unfort­u­nately. I’m still at the lakeside hotel almost every weekend. In my opinion, that’s a must. Otherwise, it would be much harder to manage than in the past. You have to be involved in the day-to-day business of the hotel and engage with the 25 members of staff.

Lena Nalbach: The staff are a bit like family. We all know each other well, have spent decades working with each other in some cases and par­tying tog­ether. In Fincken, we’ve had the same chef for almost a decade. He is very attached to the region and the restaurant is his dream.

Jan Hamer: But let’s briefly return to archi­tecture. What makes the lakeside hotel so special is the multi-faceted nature of the project, which has evolved gra­dually over a long period of time. Do you think the hotel is finished, or are there more plans in the pipeline?

Johanne Nalbach: Just yes­terday, I fal­tered again at the next, tiny hurdle. I’d like to build a garden sauna right on the lake so that you can see the water from a big window. That’s not allowed in outside areas in Meck­lenburg, but it is in Schleswig-Hol­stein. A 50-metre-long strip of the bank has to be kept free, which reg­rettably makes lakeside views impos­sible. I’m not allowed to build a solar power facility on the road where the tennis court is either.

Some­times it feels like nobody in local government circles is pre­pared to take respon­si­bility any more. When I look back at our time designing the federal press office, I went straight to the top of the fire service. I talked to the fire chief and told him that I understood fire safety, but that some details were illo­gical and could be done dif­fer­ently. They lis­tened and took respon­si­bility in lots of situa­tions.

Nobody would do that today. Everyone com­plies with German building law to the letter. People don’t want to be per­so­nally respon­sible for any­thing.

On the other hand, we archi­tects curr­ently take full respon­si­bility despite planning per­mission. Local government no longer takes any, so could be a lot more laid back in the run-up to a project. In the past, planning per­mission gave you some security, but that doesn’t apply nowadays.

“In my view, life is like a theatre. The audience always looks at the stage. There’s always a space in between, which helps me to do my job.”

- Johanne Nalbach

Jan Hamer: We’re curr­ently noticing the emer­gence of a rising number of coope­rative pro­jects or groups of people co-buying real estate. What’s your view of those?

Johanne Nalbach: I think that they will become more and more popular. In such a volatile era, people will incre­asingly embrace the option to form a com­munity. From an archi­tec­tural stand­point, I welcome it because you can also engage with people who would otherwise have no touch­points with archi­tecture. It’s a positive change even if it’s a tough path to follow.

Lena Nalbach: Yes, the concept’s an exciting one. I can see lots of oppor­tu­nities for trans­forming existing pro­jects.

Johanne Nalbach: But it needs to be said that Urlaubs­ar­chi­tektur magazine has done a stellar job at edu­cating lots of people about archi­tecture. In Switz­erland and Austria, children are taught some­thing about archi­tecture in primary school already, which isn’t so in Germany. Your magazine has made a huge con­tri­bution in this respect. You’re leading in the industry.

Jan Hamer: Thanks for the com­pliment. We’ll con­tinue to work hard on setting mile­stones in the future too. And thanks for talking to us.

Johanne Nalbach founded her archi­tecture firm with her husband Gernot Nalbach in Berlin in 1975 after he had been appointed pro­fessor at Berlin Uni­versity of the Arts. He lec­tured at TU Dortmund Uni­versity for many decades, from where he spear­headed his autumn academy pro­gramme, an inter­na­tional forum based in the lakeside hotel and noto­rious among stu­dents and lec­turers alike. Johanne also held an honorary pro­fes­sorship at the Uni­versity of Kansas. Both were pio­neers of the designer hotel concept. They oversaw pro­jects ranging from indus­trial design to large-scale urban deve­lo­p­ments, land­marks such as Berlin’s con­fe­rence centre for the press and the Art’otel Rhein­au­hafen in Cologne, or the repur­posing of existing buil­dings such as the one belonging to the Uni­versity of Applied Sci­ences in Berlin.

Lena Nalbach studied archi­tecture at the Archi­tec­tural Asso­ciation in London and the Uni­versity of Applied Arts in Vienna. She taught inter­di­sci­plinary studios at the Uni­versity of Ken­tucky and ran a semester abroad pro­gramme for two years, which sent stu­dents to various European loca­tions. Her pro­jects focused on tem­porary, nomadic struc­tures, such as a slum based on Aus­trian building law for a fes­tival and she won first prize for floating archi­tecture at the inter­na­tional building exhi­bition in Lausitz. If she didn’t have the Kava­liershaus in Fincken, she says her main focus would be ships and reusing ports for the ori­ginal purpose, as well as natural dis­asters.

Moritz Nalbach ori­gi­nally did a cul­tural studies degree at Frankfurt/Oder’s Via­drina uni­versity. He’s self taught in many areas. At the lakeside hotel, he sets store by adapting a business that has evolved slowly to the modern rea­lities of AI and mobility.

Interview: The interview was con­ducted by Jan Hamer and Ulrich Stefan Knoll

Photos: © Bal­thasar Freise (Cover photo), See­hotel Neu­klos­tersee © Gernot Nalbach (1, 3), See­hotel Neu­klos­tersee © Cyrus Saedi (2), Kava­liershaus Schloss Blücher © Gernot Nalbach (4), Kava­liershaus Schloss Blücher © Cyrus Saedi (5), Kava­liershaus Schloss Blücher © Ben Donath (6), Kava­liershaus Schloss Blücher © Wal­traud Stoll (7), See­hotel Neu­klos­tersee © Hanjo Folster (8), See­hotel Neu­klos­tersee © Gernot Nalbach (9), See­hotel Neu­klos­tersee © Reto Gundli (10), See­hotel Neu­klos­tersee © Ken Schluchtmann (11, 12), See­hotel Neu­klos­tersee © Ben Donath (13, 14), Kava­liershaus Schloss Blücher © Henryk Weif­fenbach (15), Kava­liershaus Schloss Blücher © Gernot Nalbach (16), See­hotel Neu­klos­tersee © Hauke Dressler (17)